Matilda Ostow

Bosnia and Herzegovina

HIA Program:

Bosnia and Herzegovina
2018

Bio:

Matilda Ostow grew up in a community-housing complex alongside the train tracks in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2017, she graduated Wesleyan University with a degree in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. Now based in Philadelphia, she is trying to figure out how best to contribute to the world. Interning on a storytelling and performance project that joined Philadelphia police officers and community members of color elucidated the healing that could come from sharing experiences of police brutality. She currently works at a private book restoration studio, fixing books that range from multi-generational family bibles to a journal documenting an 1842 whaling expedition. She also works with Books Through Bars, a volunteer-run organization that fills book requests from people who are currently incarcerated in the Pennsylvania-area. Attending a two-week oral history workshop this May, she hopes to compound her interests in storytelling, place-making, social justice, and critically-engaged ethnographical work.